Microsoft to upgrade its Redmond headquarters next year

The new plans include building a two-acre open plaza that can fit 2,000 people.

As part of a plan to overhaul its 500-acre campus in Redmond, Washington State, Microsoft will start a multi-year project in 2018 to create 18 new buildings, alongside new public spaces, transportation investments and sports fields.

According to a report on The Verge, the updated campus will house 47,000 Microsoft employees that currently work at the company’s headquarters in Redmond and allow for 8,000 more people. The new plans include building a two-acre open plaza that can fit 2,000 people.

The company, which currently has 125 buildings on its campus, will demolish 12 old buildings with bigger 18 replacements. After the completion of the project, the building number will rise to 131 buildings. The work is expected to take between five and seven years to complete.

In October, Microsoft built treehouse workspaces with an embedded tech at its Redmond campus that will serve as meeting spaces and a more casual work environment. The treehouse is one of the three new branch-based meeting spaces and is part of a larger new system of technology-enabled outdoor districts connected to buildings around campus empowering employees to work in new ways.

Earlier this year, Apple opened its new Apple Park campus. Its Cloud rival Amazon is also looking space for its second headquarters and had fielded bizarre bets from cities desperate for the retail giant to build a campus outside of Seattle.